Everyone seems to look for the silver bullet, the short cut, the easy way. Being a sales coach, I have seen every extreme of talent, technique and methods when talking to professional sales people.
By way to illustration, a commercial printer rep was the classic “show up to throw up” sales person. His sales strategy incorporated coming to my office with literally boxes full of his best work. He then proceeded, till I cut him off twenty minutes later on to ask him to tell me why his print shop was the best and how he was the most reasonable price in the town.
The thing is… he never basically asked me what I required or what problem I had. Of course, he did not get the sale.
This sounds like an extraordinary example, but sadly, its rather common-place. Sales is a unclean word to the majority of people. Why? Well let’s accept it—there are a large amount of bad sales folk out there. They come and gab your ear off about why they’re the most practical solution without taking a single moment to determine your requirement—if any.